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Which colleges and universities are the most influential in the world? And, in what do they excel?
Find the colleges and universities that have made the biggest historical impact in the discipline, country, and timeframe of your choice! We rank universities and colleges from around the world based on the scholarly work of their faculty and alumni, i.e., influence.
Note: The schools featured using this tool are influential in the disciplines selected. This does not necessarily mean that they offer a degree in the selected discipline. For example, Princeton University ranks highly for its influence in law. Given that Princeton is the alma mater of three former US presidents (James Madison, Woodrow Wilson, and John F. Kennedy) and three Supreme Court Justices (Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, & Sonia Sotomayor), among many other prominent statespeople and law makers, Princeton’s influence in the field of law is undiniable. Nevertheless, they offer degrees in politics and public policy, but not law specifically.
To find influential schools in the US that offer degrees in your area of interest, use our Custom College Rankings tool.
List of the most influential schools in Medical, for the years 2000 – 2020
#1
Harvard University
#1 institution's overall influence
#2 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
5%
Graduation
97%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1520/34
Cambridge, MA
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Harvard University is almost universally acclaimed as the world’s most prestigious university. There is little doubt that its towering reputation is well earned.
#2
University of London
#2 institution's overall influence
An institution of higher education named University College London (UCL) was founded in the UK’s largest metropolis and capital city in 1826. A mere three years later, in 1829, a second, similar institution named King’s College London (KCL) opened its doors. Then, a mere decade after the founding of UCL, a third institution known simply as University of London (UL) was founded in 1836 by the merger of UCL and KCL.
#3
Stanford University
#10 institution's overall influence
#1 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$51K
Acceptance
4%
Graduation
94%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1495/33
Stanford, CA
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Stanford University was founded by Leland Stanford, a wealthy railroad magnate and erstwhile US Senator from California, as well as a former Governor of the Golden State. He placed the university in an unincorporated area about 30 miles south of San Francisco, adjacent to the town of Palo Alto (which he also founded). The campus lies in what is now known as Silicon Valley, which contributes greatly to the immense intellectual and economic influence of the private, research university that still bears the Stanford family name. Today, Stanford University is perhaps the closest thing to a true Iv...
#4
Johns Hopkins University
#20 institution's overall influence
#21 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
92%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
Baltimore, MD
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Johns Hopkins was designed from its origin to contribute to the cutting edge of scientific discovery. With time, this goal has been fully achieved, leading to the top-tier research institution that the university is today. The school is named after its founding benefactor, the entrepreneur and philanthropist Johns Hopkins, who contributed $7 million (approximately $145 million in today’s money) to create both the university and an associated hospital.
#5
Columbia University
#3 institution's overall influence
#6 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
6%
Graduation
95%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
New York, NY
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Columbia is the eleventh-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. After New Jersey founded its college (now Princeton University) in 1746, New Yorkers, not wishing to be outdone, established their own college just eight years later. Its original name was King’s College.
#6
University of Pennsylvania
#17 institution's overall influence
#10 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
95%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1485/33
Philadelphia, PA
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The University of Pennsylvania (commonly known as “Penn”) is a leading private research university (note that nearly all US universities named after their state are public-supported—Penn is an exception to this rule).
#7
New York University
#16 institution's overall influence
#44 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
20%
Graduation
85%
Student body
47K
Median SAT/ACT
1410/31
New York, NY
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As the cultural mecca of the US, New York City naturally contains many fine colleges and universities. One of the very best is New York University (NYU), located in Washington Square in Lower Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. While NYU is a quintessentially urban school lacking a conventional, pastoral college campus setting, its site is immediately recognizable thanks to Washington Square Arch, which is a replica of the ancient Roman Arch of Titus and very similar in appearance to Paris’s celebrated Arc de Triomphe (though only half its size).
#8
Yale University
#7 institution's overall influence
#4 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
6%
Graduation
98%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1515/34
New Haven, CT
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Yale was originally founded under the name of Collegiate School by Connecticut Colony in 1701. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher learning in the US, after Harvard, the College of William & Mary (in Williamsburg, Virginia), and St. John’s College (in Annapolis, Maryland). Called the “Collegiate School,” its original mission was to train future ministers for the Congregational Church.
#9
University of Michigan
#15 institution's overall influence
#37 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$16K
Acceptance
23%
Graduation
91%
Student body
42K
Median SAT/ACT
1420/32
Ann Arbor, MI
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The flagship campuses of many of the state university systems have superb faculties and excellent academic reputations. However, setting aside Berkeley as a special case, by our criteria the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus is the most distinguished of all these many fine institutions. That is, Michigan has a strong claim to be considered (after Berkeley) the best public research university in the US.
#10
Massachusetts General Hospital
#382 institution's overall influence
Massachusetts General Hospital is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United States and has a capacity of 999 beds. With Brigham and Women's Hospital, it is one of the two founding members of Partners HealthCare, the largest healthcare provider in Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Hospital conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the world, with an annual research budget of more than $1 billion in 2019. It is currently ranked as the #
#11
University of Toronto
#24 institution's overall influence
The University of Toronto received its royal charter in 1827 from King George IV. Originally known as King’s College, it was the first institution of higher learning in the colonial Province of Upper Canada (consisting of mostly what is now southern Ontario).
#12
University of California, San Francisco
#147 institution's overall influence
Student body
1K
San Francisco, CA
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The University of California, San Francisco is a public research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and it is dedicated entirely to health science. It is a major center of medical and biological research and teaching.
#13
University of Edinburgh
#12 institution's overall influence
In spite of dating back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the University of Edinburgh is only the fourth-oldest university in Scotland (after St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen), hence the sixth-oldest in the English-speaking world (with Oxford and Cambridge, of course, in first and second positions).
#14
University of Washington
#42 institution's overall influence
#69 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
49%
Graduation
84%
Student body
46K
Median SAT/ACT
1340/29
Seattle, WA
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In the 1850s, the Governor of Washington Territory and some of his Seattle-based friends and business associates, including a prominent Methodist minister, put their heads together to figure out a way to advance two causes close to their hearts: the prospect of statehood for the territory and the economic welfare of the city of Seattle.
#15
Duke University
#31 institution's overall influence
#12 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
95%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1510/34
Durham, NC
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Duke began life as Brown’s Schoolhouse, on a site in what is now the town of Trinity in Randolph County, North Carolina, a little over 70 miles west of its current location in the city of Durham.
#16
Boston University
#37 institution's overall influence
#56 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
22%
Graduation
87%
Student body
30K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/31
Boston, MA
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Boston University (universally known as “BU”) traces its roots to a Methodist Church training college, the Newbury Biblical Institute, founded in Newbury, Vermont, by a group of Boston-based Methodist ministers and elders. Ten years later, in 1849, the school was transferred to the much larger town (and state capital) of Concord, New Hampshire, where it operated as the Concord Biblical Institute for 20 more years. Finally, in 1869, it moved again, this time to Boston itself, under the new name of the Boston Theological Institute.
#17
Imperial College London
#50 institution's overall influence
The origins of Imperial College London (ICL) can be traced back to the Royal College of Chemistry, founded in 1845. In 1853, this school was merged with the Royal School of Mines, established two years previously.
#18
University of Southern California
#39 institution's overall influence
#30 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
13%
Graduation
92%
Student body
37K
Median SAT/ACT
1440/32
Los Angeles, CA
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The University of Southern California (USC) was founded as the first private research university in the state (five years before Stanford) largely through the efforts of Judge Robert Widney, one of the most prominent citizens of Los Angeles at that time.
#19
University of Oxford
#11 institution's overall influence
The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, which affords it an aura of awe and respect that no amount of money can buy.
#20
Cornell University
#14 institution's overall influence
#14 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
94%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1465/33
Ithaca, NY
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Cornell University was founded in turbulent times. With the Civil War winding down, and less than two weeks after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the Governor of New York signed the school’s official charter in the state capital, Albany, where only the day before Lincoln’s funeral procession had passed through the city’s streets.
#21
University of Pittsburgh
#71 institution's overall influence
#987 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$19K
Acceptance
59%
Graduation
81%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1350/30
Pittsburgh, PA
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University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”) traces its roots to the Pittsburgh Academy, a preparatory school founded in 1787, when Pittsburgh was still a frontier outpost. Defined in this way, Pitt is the oldest continuously chartered educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains.
#22
University of California, Los Angeles
#23 institution's overall influence
#31 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
14%
Graduation
91%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1405/32
Los Angeles, CA
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The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA traces its early origins back to 1882 as the southern branch of the California State Normal School . It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the 10-campus University of California system.
#23
Northwestern University
#28 institution's overall influence
#24 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
94%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1490/34
Evanston, IL
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The founding of Northwestern University was spearheaded by the physician and politician John Evans, for whom the town of Evanston, Illinois, is named. The school is a private institution whose campus lies along Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago.
#24
University of California, Berkeley
#6 institution's overall influence
#29 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
15%
Graduation
92%
Student body
41K
Median SAT/ACT
1425/33
Berkeley, CA
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The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the state's first land-grant university, it is the oldest campus of the University of California system and a founding member of the Association of American Universities. Among its 14 colleges and schools, the university employs over 2,500 faculty and enrolls some 31,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students, and its 180 academic departments and 80 interdisciplinary research units offer over 350 degree programs. Berkeley is ranked among the world's top universities by ma...
#25
McGill University
#40 institution's overall influence
McGill University is the direct descendent of McGill College, founded by royal charter in 1821 and largely funded by a bequest from the Scottish-born Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist, James McGill. The university took its present name in 1885.
#26
Washington University in St. Louis
#61 institution's overall influence
#20 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
15%
Graduation
94%
Student body
12K
Median SAT/ACT
1520/33
Saint Louis, MO
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Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), which is located in an unincorporated area just west of the St. Louis city limits, was founded in 1853. WUSTL’s student body is highly diversified, including individuals from all 50 states and some 120 foreign countries.
#27
University of Minnesota
#33 institution's overall influence
#890 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$15K
Acceptance
52%
Graduation
78%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/28
Minneapolis, MN
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The University of Minnesota (UM) traces its roots to a college preparatory school established in the city of Minneapolis seven years before Minnesota entered the Union in 1858. This school closed its doors during the Civil War, but reopened in 1867.
#28
McMaster University
#150 institution's overall influence
McMaster University is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood and Westdale, adjacent to the Royal Botanical Gardens. It operates six academic faculties: the DeGroote School of Business, Engineering, Health Sciences, Humanities, Social Science, and Science. It is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada.
#29
University of Cambridge
#4 institution's overall influence
Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is one of the oldest universities in the world (or, at least, in Europe, not to prejudge the claims of several Islamic institutions to that title).
#30
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
#9 institution's overall influence
#3 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
93%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1535/35
Cambridge, MA
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded shortly before the American Civil War and universally known as “MIT,” is located just across the Charles River from downtown Boston. Starting from the MIT campus, if you walk, cycle, or drive in a westerly direction along Massachusetts Avenue (“Mass Ave,” to the locals), or ride the Red Line underneath it, you soon arrive at Harvard Square, with the bulk of the town of Cambridge sandwiched in between. Thus, MIT is not unlike a bookend paired with Harvard, geographically speaking, and academically speaking, as well, it looks upon itself very mu...
#31
University of Chicago
#5 institution's overall influence
#8 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
94%
Student body
12K
Median SAT/ACT
1520/34
Chicago, IL
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The University of Chicago is one of the foremost universities in the world academically, albeit one of the youngest in that august company. In spite of its relatively recent founding, the school has been associated with some of the world’s most important scientific achievements, above all, the first controlled, self-sustaining, nuclear chain reaction (atomic fission), which was achieved in late 1942 by a team led by the legendary Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, in a laboratory beneath a football field on the Chicago campus.
#32
Emory University
#113 institution's overall influence
#41 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$51K
Acceptance
19%
Graduation
91%
Student body
13K
Median SAT/ACT
1435/32
Atlanta, GA
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Emory University is a private, research university originally founded in Oxford, Georgia, in 1836 by the Methodist Episcopal Church as Emory College.
#33
Vanderbilt University
#115 institution's overall influence
#16 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
10%
Graduation
92%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
Nashville, TN
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Vanderbilt University was founded in 1873 as the Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (known as Central University, for short).
#34
Tufts University
#69 institution's overall influence
#25 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
15%
Graduation
92%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1455/32
Medford, MA
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Tufts University was founded as Tufts College in 1852 in the Boston Metropolitan Area–suburb of Medford, north of Cambridge. The school was built under the auspices of the Universalist Church of America on 20 acres of land donated by businessman and philanthropist Charles Tufts. Today, the university also has a satellite campus located in downtown Boston.
#35
University of Birmingham
#53 institution's overall influence
The University of Birmingham has a rather involved history. The oldest entity to which the modern university can trace its roots is the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery, founded in 1825. This medical-training college was officially recognized by the crown in 1836, becoming the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, which developed into Queen’s College, Birmingham, in 1843.
#36
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
#837 institution's overall influence
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was a state-run health sciences institution of New Jersey, United States.
#37
University of Virginia
#44 institution's overall influence
#40 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
26%
Graduation
94%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/32
Charlottesville, VA
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The University of Virginia (UVA) was very much the personal project of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Virginia already had a venerable and distinguished university, the College of William & Mary, which is the second-oldest in the country—founded right after Harvard—and was Jefferson’s own alma mater.
#38
University of Melbourne
#93 institution's overall influence
The University of Melbourne is a public research university founded in 1853, the second-oldest institution of higher learning in Australia.
#39
George Washington University
#62 institution's overall influence
#76 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
42%
Graduation
84%
Student body
21K
Median SAT/ACT
1370/30
Washington, DC
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George Washington University (GWU) was founded in 1821, under the name of Columbian College, by an act of the US Congress, signed by President James Monroe.
#40
University of Dhaka
#274 institution's overall influence
University of Dhaka is the oldest university in Bangladesh. Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah, who played a pioneering role in establishing the university in Dhaka, donated 600 acres of land from his estate for this purpose. On the first day of July 1921 the University of Dhaka opened its doors to students with Sir P.J. Hartog as the first Vice-Chancellor of the University in British Raj, it has made significant contributions to the modern history of Bangladesh. After the Partition of India, it became the focal point of progressive and democratic movements in Pakistan. Its students and teachers pla...
#41
Georgetown University
#70 institution's overall influence
#19 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
15%
Graduation
94%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1450/32
Washington, DC
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Georgetown University is a Catholic institution of higher learning that was founded in 1789 by John Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore.
#42
Baylor College of Medicine
#504 institution's overall influence
Student body
<1K
Houston, TX
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Baylor College of Medicine is a private stand-alone health sciences university located in Houston, Texas within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences; the School of Health Professions, and the National School of Tropical Medicine. The school is part owner, alongside Catholic Health Initiatives , of Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, the flagship hospital of the CHI St. Luke's Health system. Other affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes include Ha
#43
Dartmouth College
#55 institution's overall influence
#11 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
97%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1490/33
Hanover, NH
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Despite the word “college” in its name, Dartmouth is a full-scale, PhD-granting, private, research university. Indeed, it is an official member of the Ivy League, and is the fourteenth-oldest university in the US, founded only five years after Brown and 15 years after Columbia.
#44
Brown University
#36 institution's overall influence
#7 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
96%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1485/33
Providence, RI
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Brown began life as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (officially) or Rhode Island College (unofficially). It is the twelfth-oldest institution of higher learning in the US.
#45
Yeshiva University
#212 institution's overall influence
#136 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$44K
Acceptance
60%
Graduation
82%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/26
New York, NY
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Yeshiva University is a private research university with four campuses in New York City. The university's undergraduate schools — Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, and Syms School of Business — offer a dual curriculum inspired by Modern-Centrist-Orthodox Judaism's hashkafa of Torah Umadda , combining academic education with the study of the Torah. While the majority of students at the university are of the Jewish faith, many students, especially at the Cardozo School of Law, the School of Business, the Graduate School of Psychology, and the Medical School, are not Jewish.
#46
Case Western Reserve University
#134 institution's overall influence
#110 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$49K
Acceptance
29%
Graduation
82%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1435/32
Cleveland, OH
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Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) was established in 1967 through the merger of Western Reserve University (founded in 1826) and Case Institute of Technology (founded in 1880).
#47
University of Warwick
#165 institution's overall influence
The University of Warwick (pronounced “Warrick”) was founded in 1965 near the West Midlands market town of the same name, which lies approximately halfway between Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon, and has a population of a little over 30,000. However, the university campus does not lie in Warwick proper, but rather in a rural area to the north of the old town center, virtually on the outskirts of Coventry.
#48
University of California, San Diego
#48 institution's overall influence
#71 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
30%
Graduation
87%
Student body
36K
Median SAT/ACT
1365/30
La Jolla, CA
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The University of California, San Diego is a public research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling approximately 30,800 undergraduate and 8,000 graduate students. The university occupies near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with the main campus resting on approximately .
#49
University of Sydney
#79 institution's overall influence
The wave of expansion of Homo sapiens out of its African birthplace reached the continent of Australia around 40,000 years ago, or more. However, the first visit of Europeans to the land down under did not occur until 1606, when the Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon made landfall at what is now the town of Weipa on the western shore of the Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland.
#50
Princeton University
#8 institution's overall influence
#5 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
5%
Graduation
97%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/33
Princeton, NJ
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Although only the ninth-oldest university in the country, Princeton is one of the most historic. Originally founded as the College of New Jersey, the school’s sixth presidents, the Scottish theologian and educator John Witherspoon, signed the Declaration of Independence—the only college leader to do so. The next year, George Washington’s colonials dealt a small but significant blow to Lord Cornwallis’s superior forces at the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777. The victories at the earlier Battle of Trenton and at Princeton had an important positive effect on American morale, leading ...
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